The vehicle of a Cherry Hill activist and pastor was defaced with a threatening message on Thursday, and city police say they are investigating. It's the second time Cleoda Walker says she has been threatened since she started looking into complaints from residents about what they say are over-aggressive security officers in the Cherry Hill neighborhood. And the most recent incident comes as papers were served on officers being sued in a class-action filing by Walker and 20 other residents, according to attorney Tonya Bana, of the Murphy Firm.

Deck work on Hanover Street's Vietnam Veterans Memorial Bridge south of Federal Hill will close the span in stages beginning Tuesday, according to the Baltimore Department of Transportation. Southbound lanes of Hanover Street between East McComas Street in Riverside north of the bridge, and Waterview Avenue in Cherry Hill south of the bridge, will close around 10 a.m. Tuesday, and will remain closed through 5 a.m. Monday morning, the department said. Northbound lanes in the same stretch will close Friday night, at midnight, and also remain closed until 5 a.m. Monday, the department said.

Over the course of three days in Cherry Hill in January 2011, a former standout high school basketball player was fatally shot and a youth football coach was murdered in front of his family. Those shootings and at least three others in the South Baltimore neighborhood were not disparate incidents, authorities alleged Tuesday, but part of a gang war. Prosecutors along with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and Baltimore police said 26 people have been indicted on racketeering charges after an investigation into the feuding between Cherry Hill gangs called "Up Da Hill" and groups known as "Little Spelman" and "Coppin Court.

Michael Middleton calls poverty Baltimore's biggest enemy. The $1.1 billion plan to overhaul the city's schools is fine, he told Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake and new superintendent Gregory Thornton, but the economic issues facing families need to be addressed first. The city's problems "won't be fixed by brick and mortar," the Cherry Hill Community Coalition representative said. "That's where I disagree with you," the mayor replied, adding that even the city's poorest areas produce good students, who desperately need a place to succeed.

I have no intention of downplaying the importance of law enforcement in the community, especially when it comes to programs that are more rehabilitative than they are combative, but I feel that articles such as your recent report on the Cherry Hill neighborhood cast a more negative light on certain communities than necessary and that they are quite frankly counter-intuitive to the notion of social justice ("On the beat in Cherry Hill," July 15)....

Two men were shot in the Cherry Hill neighborhood of Baltimore on Sunday night and are expected to survive after they walked into nearby Harbor Hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, police said. The men, aged 20 and 22, were shot shortly after 9 p.m. in the 700 block of Cherry Hill Road, police said. Police did not immediately have further information on a suspect or motive. There were three shooting homicides in Cherry Hill in 2012. cwells@baltsun.com twitter.com/cwellssun

The Baltimore City Fire Department is investigating the cause of a fire Sunday morning at 3023 La Rue Square in the Cherry Hill neighborhood, according to Lt. Paul Novak. The fire occurred around 11:30 a.m. on the second floor of a two-story dwelling. The residence was occupied at the time, but no one was injured, Novak said. Damage to the residence was extensive, but limited to the second floor, he said. Text BUSINESS to 70701 to get Baltimore Sun Business text alerts

A man was shot in the back in Baltimore's Cherry Hill neighborhood late Saturday, city police said. Police said they found the 27-year-old victim in the 1100 block of Shellbanks Road just after 10 p.m. He told them that two men he didn't know approached him there, and one shot him with a handgun before both fled. The shooting victim was taken to a local hospital. Police did not identify the victim. jhopkins@baltsun.com twitter.com/jsmithhopkins

Gunfire in Baltimore's Cherry Hill neighborhood late Monday has left one man dead and another wounded. It's the first fatal shooting in Cherry Hill since December, which has historically been one of the city's most violent neighborhoods and where four people were killed last year. The victims were walking in the 2700 block of Giles Rd about 11:30 p.m., when unknown suspects approached them and began firing weapons. A 28-year-old man, identified as Anthony Cureton, was taken to Maryland Shock Trauma Center, where he was pronounced dead at 1:45 a.m., according to Det. Nicole Monroe, a police spokeswoman.

A Cherry Hill crack dealer admitted in federal court Wednesday to killing two rivals as part of a long-running feud between two neighborhood drug crews. Davon Martin, 25, was a member of a group known as Little Spelman, which was locked in a bitter war between 2011 and 2012 with another group, called Up Da Hill. His guilty plea to racketeering conspiracy highlights the interwoven nature of violence in some city neighborhoods. "Many of the shootings and murders in Baltimore City result from disputes between rival drug gangs," said U.S. Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein.

Several Cherry Hill residents opened their doors Monday evening to a man in a gray pinstriped suit, flanked by aides and cameras on their front stoops. "Hi, I'm Greg Thornton," the new city schools superintendent said each time, extending his hand. Thornton and Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake walked the neighborhood, introducing themselves and handing out fliers promoting a Thursday night education forum at Friendship Academy. Thornton, 59, hired in February from his job as superintendent of Milwaukee's public schools, said he was excited "to knock on some doors and meet some folks.

Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake and new schools CEO Gregory Thornton will kick off a listening tour around the city on Monday, as part of a back-to-school campaign scheduled throughout the month that will include hearing out parent concerns and expectations for the upcoming school year. The effort will kick off in Cherry Hill, where Rawlings-Blake and Thornton will begin canvassing the neighborhood, knocking on doors and listening to residents. The first education forum will be held at Cherry Hill Elementary/Middle School on Thursday, when the mayor and new schools chief will talk about progress and challenges and their plans for the new school year.

More information has been released about the severely injured puppy found in a Baltimore alley Wednesday: It now appears she had been set on fire. Officials at the Noah's Arks Rescue in South Carolina, where the 6-month-old pup was transported, say Petunia (formerly called Deacon) has an extreme case of demodex, or mites. And she has wounds consistent with being severely burned. She is in critical care and will remain in that condition for some time, but is being heavily medicated so her wounds don't hurt. She was originally taken to the Baltimore Animal Rescue and Care Shelter (BARCS)

One only has to take a look at the story about the death of 14-year-old Najee Thomas in Cherry Hill and have lived in the inner city to understand the circumstances ( "In Cherry Hill, shooting takes a good friend's life," April 23). Reporter Justin George could have delved further into the history of Cherry Hill which, by the way, is nothing like its name. Predominantly African-American, the community has a long history of drugs, violence and an unstable home environment. What can we expect from generations after generation of people raised by single parents (if lucky)

A New York Times interactive map posted yesterday could settle the debate about which Baltimore-area communities show the most support for the hometown O's. The outstanding infographic uses a team's Facebook "Likes" in a given area to determine fandom within every ZIP code in the country, and in Maryland, it shows about what you'd expect. The Orioles are the dominant team, in terms of percentage of fans, in the Baltimore metro region, with the Nationals gaining a stronghold in D.C. suburbs and the Phillies only creeping across the border in the eastern Maryland towns that border Delaware.

A Cherry Hill crack dealer admitted in federal court Wednesday to killing two rivals as part of a long-running feud between two neighborhood drug crews. Davon Martin, 25, was a member of a group known as Little Spelman, which was locked in a bitter war between 2011 and 2012 with another group, called Up Da Hill. His guilty plea to racketeering conspiracy highlights the interwoven nature of violence in some city neighborhoods. "Many of the shootings and murders in Baltimore City result from disputes between rival drug gangs," said U.S. Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein.

By Justin George and Colin Campbell, The Baltimore Sun | April 23, 2014

From Cherry Hill to a West Side high school a few miles away, scores of families and friends turned out Wednesday night to mourn teenagers killed in recent days, and to decry persistent violence in the city. On the block where 14-year-old Najee Thomas was killed, residents attended an anti-violence rally. Standing on the curb was the boy who lost his best friend, now too scared to go to the school bus stop alone. In the back of the crowd was the attorney who came because she was touched that Najee had aspired to be a lawyer like herself.

A 14-year-old boy was shot in the head and killed in south Baltimore's Cherry Hill neighborhood early Tuesday morning, the third teen killed in the city in a little more than a week. Police did not release any information on potential suspects in the shooting of the boy, identified as Najee Thomas of Baltimore. Police found him inside a home in the 600 block of Roundview Road with a gunshot wound to his head around 1:15 a.m. after being called with a report of a serious shooting.